Sanity check before I migrate HA off Docker onto dedicated HAOS hardware

Installation
21

You should probably include your definition of “downtime” when you say you measure your uptime in years. I think it’s a bad way of defining downtime in a home environment. My wife doesn’t care that the internet is non-responsive because I was updating firmware on the router. To her it is down, not working.

22

Don’t you plan maintenance for after hours (sleep time for family)

And don’t you schedule maintenance with family

Yeah. I don’t get paid enough for the work I do at home​:cry:

23

In your example, the router is functioning properly while you are updating it. Updates are a function of the router, so it is functioning. Not down.

24

A router not routing packets is not down. I will tell my wife that next time. Great tip, thanks!

25

What my friend has to say about it:

In most IT and operational contexts: yes, planned maintenance is a form of downtime, but it is usually classified separately from unplanned downtime.

A common distinction is:

Type Description
Planned downtime Systems are intentionally taken offline for maintenance, upgrades, patching, hardware replacement, etc. Users are informed in advance.
Unplanned downtime Outages caused by failures, crashes, power issues, network problems, human error, and other unexpected events.

However, whether planned maintenance is counted in an SLA depends on the contract:

  • Many enterprise SLAs exclude approved maintenance windows from availability calculations.
  • Some strict SLAs count all service unavailability, including maintenance periods.
  • Cloud providers often define specific “maintenance windows” that are treated differently from service outages.

For example:

  • Service unavailable Saturday 22:00-23:00 for patching → Planned downtime.
  • Server crashes Saturday 22:00 unexpectedly → Unplanned downtime.

In IT operations reports, you will often see metrics such as:

  • Planned Downtime: 2 hours
  • Unplanned Downtime: 15 minutes
  • Service Availability: 99.95% (excluding planned maintenance)

So if someone asks, “Will the service be down during maintenance?”, the answer is yes, that is downtime. If they ask, “Does it count against our SLA uptime?”, the answer is it depends on the SLA wording.

So I think we should use Planned downtime and Unplanned downtime in the future and your family should be informed well in advance (if you have a SLA with them and the difference is mentioned :D)